Yūki Tabata began his career as a rookie when he submitted his first work, Grave Keeper HAKAMORI for 2001 Tenkaichi Manga Award, wherein he received a Special Jury Prize. He then submitted another one-shot, Blue Steady for a Rookie Manga Award in 2003, where he was one of the finalists. In 2004, Tabata entered the Tezuka Award competition where he received an honorable mention for his work, XXX WITH NO NAME. Tabata then began his professional career when he published a one-shot, Garance, in 2005 Akamaru Jump.

In 2011, Tabata entered the Golden Future Cup, which allowed him to publish a one-shot in Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine as part of a competition. He published a one-shot called Hungry Joker and managed to win the aforementioned competition. This resulted in his one-shot being considered for a serialization by the magazine. The serialization for Hungry Joker began in November 2012 at the magazine's 50th issue of the year. The series received various criticisms due to the major departure that the series had taken from the original one-shot. Due to this, Hungry Joker failed to achieve popularity and was cancelled after 24 chapters in May of 2013 at the magazine's 24th issue of the year.

A year later, Tabata published a new one-shot in Jump NEXT magazine's 2nd issue of 2014, called Black Clover. The one-shot was once again considered for serialization for Weekly Shōnen Jump and it began serialization in February of 2015 at the magazine's 12th issue of the year. For his second serialization, Tabata decided to take a much closer inspiration from the original one-shot where the main characters' design and personalities, along with the fundamental settings, were carried through in the series.

Tabata was married to an undisclosed person right before the serialization for Black Clover began. He announced the news via the author's comments section on February 23, 2015 at the 13th issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump.